Before this trip I had been to Kyoto just as a day trip from Osaka, so I was very excited to be returning. I liked Kyoto before and I absolutely love it now. We stayed at the Suiran, which is a Luxury Collection hotel in the Marriott family. This is a boutique hotel that only had about 39 rooms. It's small and feels very private. They offer a complimentary taxi transfer from Kyoto Station and we arranged this through email. The hotel is about a 25 minutes drive from the station. We arrived after 9pm and everything was quiet. The entire time we were there we never saw or heard another soul on our floor.
We were shown our room and it was very nice. It was fresh and classy. The toiletries smelled amazing.
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| You don't see warnings like this every day |
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| This is the view from the main restaurant |
The grounds are beautiful and quintessentially Japanese. The hotel is right along the river and you can see it from the edge of the property, but otherwise you'd never know it.
Our room had a balcony and it was so hot that we really never used it. We were there during the heatwave that hit Japan. The view was so wonderful though and it felt a million miles away from anything.
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| There was a man with this remote controlled boat, a mini version of actual river boats |
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| This is a little statue at the Arashiyama station |
The Arashiyama station is very close to the Suiran and it is the end of the Randen line. The train consists of a single car. The one we were on was a really old retro one. The Randen line takes you closer into town but not really close to things we wanted to see.
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| I picked up some takoyaki for 300 yen at the Arashiyama station |
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| The Ryozen Kannon statue in the Eastern part of Kyoto |
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| Tofuku-ji temple |
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| Kyoto Station |
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| snack at a cafe in the Isetan at Kyoto Station |
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| Tenryuji Temple near the Suiran hotel |
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| bamboo forest near the Tenryuji temple |
